38 PEOGEESS IN OTHEE COUNTBIES 



limit prescribed by Government beyond which they 

 may not go. The land is occupied by the preliminary 

 cultivation and by the crop for a period of about 

 eighteen months, so the result is that about half the 

 village lands in a sugar district are occupied by the 

 sugar company at any given time. At the end of the 

 sugar season this half is returned to the villagers for 

 rice growing and the other half is rented, and so on 

 from year to year. The rent paid amounts to about 

 Es.40 per acre for the whole time that the land is 

 occupied, or (say) Es.30 per acre, per annum. The 

 villagers pay the land revenue amounting to about 

 Es.7 per acre, per annum. It is stated that the cul- 

 tivators are glad to let their land for such rents and 

 would let more land to the sugar companies if the law 

 did not forbid it. It gives the cultivators a good deal 

 of work to remake the embankments and to restore 

 the fields to the condition of rice fields after they have 

 been laid off for sugar-cane and returned to them with 

 the cane stumps still in them ; but the rent received 

 by the cultivators probably pays them as well as 

 cultivating rice and other crops, and the large demand 

 for labour on the part of the sugar companies means 

 that every man and woman can find a market close 

 to his home for every hour's work that he can spare 

 from his own fields. So far as the sugar companies, 

 however, are concerned the rent is a light one for land 

 of this quality in a densely populated locality where 

 the irrigation facilities and climate are suitable for 

 cane production. The land is hired from year to year 



